The process took decades, but we have finally arrived at a situation when one can confidently say that as of today, the United States of American is a de facto police state. A real one. It's not hyperbole, or some sort of exaggerated notion used to make a point about "isolated" cases of police brutality.
Also, this undeniable fact has nothing to do with petty attacks on any one particular political party, or the president, or any one particular politician. It's a systemic issue. The system has turned fascistic, plutocratic, and oppressive.
How did we get here? A powerful group of ideologues comprised of "thinkers," politicians, wealthy people, and the heads of multinational corporations, with a shared affinity, and motivated mainly by shared interests and values, greed, and power lust, came together with the intent of exerting influence on the government, with the eventual goal of controlling the levers of power.
These people do not see themselves as evil, or greedy, or tyrannical. To the contrary, they see themselves as noble, with a "father-knows-best" view of the world. Some of the philosophical underpinnings of this movements are based on writings of people like Leo Strauss, which expounds the theory that the masses are too stupid for self-rule, and that they have to be controlled by a superior elite, and that that control sometimes requires grand lies and manipulation of the populace. And people like Ayn Rand, who helps perpetuate the mythology of a superior "race" or "type of person" who creates, who invents, who produces, who is smarter, and who deserves more for the sake of his superiority.
There are also influences of Social Darwinism, and philosophies and social constructs used mainly to control the populace, including nationalism, superstition (or religion), fear, uniformity, hegemony, consumerism, and a massive propaganda machine (in the entire U.S. media landscape).
Because of a confluence of interests, a certain segment of the moneyed elite, their intellectuals/philosophers/thinkers, and politicians (who were corrupted almost universally through campaign finance, favors, and job offers), became what is today the American Plutocratic Kleptocracy.
They went about taking control of all the levers of power. They tore down all the regulations protecting against dangerous accumulation of wealth and power. After having completed this process, they went about enacting laws specifically-designed to transfer power and wealth to them, at the expense of the population. They bought off the entire media landscape across the entire nation, turning it into the most sophisticated propaganda machine the world has ever seen--one that is eerily effective.
This situation resulted in a rapid deterioration in the economic security of the middle class, rapid and growing poverty, diminished access to education (which tyrants always like because it keeps the population dumbed-down, and easily-manipulated).
As the criminal plutocratic kleptocracy was taking shape during the last few decades, eventually it also needed the protection of a police state. Keep in mind that a police state is usually deployed against the intellectuals, activists, labor leaders, and students who usually are the first ones to quickly identify the rise of fascism. It is always the case, that when fascism is coming to life, the vast majority of the population remains oblivious to its presence, mainly because of the effects of propaganda.
In the United States, the propaganda apparatus not only includes the entire mainstream media, but also very powerful right-wing think tanks (American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, CATO, and others), corporatist public relations firms, and organizations like ALEC.
The police state came into being (the country turned) right after 9/11, when a huge number of draconian laws that eviscerated many Constitutional protections, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, habeas corpus, protection against illegal search and seizure, indefinite detention, torture, surveillance, extra-judicial assassinations, ability to designate U.S. citizens as enemy combatants.
In every fascist police state, one of the most important components that helps protect it is the financial interests of the ruling class, and again, this is typically based on greed and lust of power (although the ruling elites never see themselves in that light).
And so in an incestuous relationship (as it were), the greedy wealthy pays off the sycophantic greedy, money-grabbing politician (bribery) of both parties (which is basically, one party), and they become co-dependent. And the politician, being in charge of the government structure, then controls the security apparatus (intelligence services, police, military).
This arrangement then becomes a de facto, real, tangible, and brutal fascistic police state.
Once this status is reached, then the plutocratic kleptocracy becomes ever more oppressive, pushing down on the populace.
The current economic calamity in the U.S., which has plunged tens of millions of people into economic insecurity, poverty, and despair, was the direct result of thievery and looting of the entire financial system and country's treasury by the plutocratic kleptocracy.
Thus far, they have been able to get away with the crime because through the control of government, the wealthy elite has been able to codify into law their ability to pillage the wealth of the country. The saying "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty" came about for reason...
As it's always the case in history, for every action, there is a reaction... So as the thievery and oppression and subjugation and enslavement of the population increases, people have risen to oppose it. As this happens, the fascistic infrastructure (both legal and physical) that was put in place after 9/11 will be deployed against the population with increasingly brutal force.
And because Americans, being Americans, with a long history of standing up against oppression, with a long history of revolutionary fervor, with a long history of not choosing to live bowed down, on their knees, as serfs of a god-dammed few greedy sociopathic tyrants, are going to resist the oppression, eventually it will become crystal clear that that the security apparatus, including the police, will ultimately protect the interests of the Plutocrats. Hence, a Police State.
If Americans had remained silent, just taking abuse for too much longer, this nascent criminal police state would have had chance to consolidate power, and then it would have been much more difficult to defeat.
But Americans have awakened form their slumber... They know that the U.S. media (ABC, CBS, CNN, FixNews, et al) is bullshit, and a propaganda machine. They have awakened, taken to the streets, created their own media (that reports the truth), and are telling the plutocratic sociopaths in no uncertain terms that the abuse and oppression and tyranny will end, one fucking way or another.